Merlin Holds Onto Its Audience

And after such a great episode, it really deserves to build its viewing figures next week

Bucking the trend for Brit fantasy shows this year, Merlin managed to maintain virtually all of its audience with its second episode of the season. The BBC's fantasy show managed to pull in 5.07 million viewers on Saturday, down just 0.01 million from last week. This is in stark contrast to Robin Hood, Demons and Primeval which all saw viewing figures plummet with the second episodes of their 2009 seasons. Merlin also won its slot and wasn't that far behind Casualty's audience figures (5.26 million) despite the Beeb's veteran hospital drama being in a much more favourable time slot. It was also number two on the BBC's iPlayer on Sunday.

And after such a great episode, let's hope word of mouth on this rapidly-improving slice of enjoyable fantasy hokum helps to start building up the viewers. The main cast has come on in leaps and bounds since the show began, and the jousting action in last night's show was massively entertaining. But the best bit had to be Being Human's Gilbert (Alex Price) as a farm-boy learning how to be prince.